Some 40 years ago, Silvio Micali and his colleague Shafi Goldwasser wanted to figure out how to play poker together on their phones. They needed a way to ensure neither could know the other player's hands.
The two computer science graduate students at the University of California-Berkeley drew up what Micali calls "the first secure encryption scheme the world has ever seen." For their invention, which proved vital to the modern internet, they were awarded the A.M. Turing Award, considered computing's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Today, Micali, 67, is focused on another application of encryption: the blockchain, which is the foundation of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. At the Milken Institute Global Conference this week, the MIT professor promoted Algorand, a blockchain he developed that he says is greener, faster and more secure than other protocols.
